Struck by tragedy at an early age, Meri Palmer escaped into the only world she understood. Within the virtual realm of online gaming, she lived a life filled with mythical creatures and thrilling adventures, where she was strong, powerful, clever, and beautiful—everything she believed she wasn’t in real life. As the years went by, her desire to cling to her cherished fantasyland only grew stronger.

Meri Palmer loves her job developing video games, having inherited a love of Disney and role-playing games from her parents. She escapes whenever she can into her fantasy life in a virtual world as Pix, the fairy warrior, much preferring that to dealing with reality and real people. It’s her way of hiding from the insecurity and sorrow resulting from the tragedy of her parents’ deaths when she was just a child. Pix is everything Meri believes she is not – brave, strong and a fighter.

For all that, Meri has a close and loving family unit. Her Grams, who has taken care of her since she was eight, along with her Italian relatives who look out for her, and Declan, who has been her best friend since forever. But when Meri meets Morgan, the bike messenger, sparks begin to fly. Morgan ‘gets’ her and Meri begins to see the possibilities life could offer if she’s brave enough to break out of her protective cocoon and rejoin the real world.

This is a fun read with an amusing and quirky cast of characters. The sharp and witty dialogue, especially between Meri, Grams and Declan is hilarious. Grams doesn’t pull any punches and there’s great banter between the three of them.

Grams put her hand up. “I can take care of myself, Meri. If this dummkopf doesn’t have the manners to introduce himself, let alone speak to his employee when giving her a new assignment, he doesn’t deserve to meet me.”

The premise of this story is very imaginative, combining contemporary with fantasy, each chapter beginning with an instalment of Meri’s virtual life as Pix. The world building and characters are brilliant and the two lives parallel each other very cleverly. I’ve never been a gamer and know little to nothing about it, but nevertheless I enjoyed following Pix’s adventures.

The Unknown’s troops continued to patrol our borders, hoping to pinpoint a weakness. His ruthless practices had resulted in the loss of seven different territories over the last month. Our resources were disappearing at an alarming rate, which meant I had to accelerate my already grossly ambitious plan.

The narrative, from Meri’s point of view and providing much hilarity, flows smoothly with well defined and entertaining characters. I like the fact Meri develops and grows with the progression of the story, and that it’s not all about the romance. Although romance does play its part, the significance is Meri’s gradual realisation of her capabilities outside of her comfort zone and how she handles the adjustments in her life, especially when Morgan gets sidetracked with problems of his own.

The mash-up of genres works well. I enjoy Glynis Astie’s naturally informal and chatty writing style very much, the realistic dialogue along with the distinctive mix of characters with equally individual personalities.

This review is based on a free copy from the author/publisher. This does not affect my opinion or the content of my review.

About the author

Glynis never expected in her wildest dreams to be a writer. After thirteen years in the Human Resources Industry, she decided to stay at home with her two amazing sons. Ever in search of a project, she was inspired to write the story of how, in only six short months, she met and married her wonderfully romantic French husband, Sebastien. The end result became her first novel, French Twist. As this was just the beginning of their epic love story, Glynis continued to chronicle their adventures in the sequel, French Toast, and the final installment in the series, French Fry. After she finished milking her life story for all it was worth, she decided to write straight-up fiction with Gamer Girl, which infuses her beloved chick lit with a hint of fantasy.

When Glynis is not writing, she is trying to keep the peace amongst the three men and two cats in her life, finding missing body parts (Lego pieces are small!), supervising a myriad of homework assignments and keeping a tenuous hold on her sanity by consuming whatever chocolate is in the vicinity.

Reading Challenge 2015

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